Airlines Concentrate On Biofuel Trials Gather Momentum

It’s bad enough for some propeller aircrafts to be described as being powered by rubber bands. Now the cynics might begin having a dig at commercial airplane flying on everything from cooking oil to melted algae.

With the civil aviation market under increasing pressure from increasing oil costs and environmental legislation, the race is on to discover practical alternatives to traditional kerosene and these so far seem to boil down to numerous types of biofuel.

Not remarkably, the very first trials of alternative fuel were initiated by British air travel leader, Sir Richard Branson, whose Virgin Atlantic started London to Amsterdam flights with minimal biofuel usage in 2008. This was quickly followed by Lufthansa and Air New Zealand who each used different blends of routine fuel and bio derivatives consisting of some from made from jatropha which can grow in soil considered too poor for growing mainstream foodstuffs.

Jatropha is a genus of 175 succulent plants, shrubs and trees (some are deciduous, like Jatropha curcas), from the household Euphorbiaceae.

In 2007 Goldman Sachs pointed out Jatropha curcas as one of the finest candidates for future biodiesel production. It is resistant to dry spell and bugs, and produces seeds including 27-40% oil.

Recently, US aerospace giant Boeing, Brazilian aerial major Embraer and the Sao Paulo state Research Support Foundation moved to bring out research and development into using biofuels to power jet airliners. It was reported that Brazilian airlines Azul, Gol, TAM and Trip would act as strategic experts for the job.

The most recent airline company to begin experimenting with new fuels is the Alaska Air Group which has carried out internal US flights utilizing a blend of 80 % petroleum based fuel and 20% biofuel made from cooking oil. This mixture, it is claimed, can cut damaging emissions by 10%.

One really encouraging development has been the move far from biofuels which contend head on with food customers therefore preventing a price spiral. Not so long back, a surge in usage of biofuels in automobiles triggered a spike in maize costs as US farmers diverted too much corn to fuel processing.

Hopefully in the future, airline companies and drivers will focus biofuel intake on non-food sources such as jatropha and algae. It would be a combined blessing undoubtedly if some people ended up starving simply to satisfy another person’s green credentials.